Monday, April 28, 2008

Last year at the All Star game, a comment about how easy the Loan Wolves are to spot because of the bright orange tops led to "nobody else wears that colour". Which was followed by responses and suggestions from various people about who else wears orange...Wolverhampton Wanderers FC (technically Old Gold)The Dutch national football teamLifeboatmenThe Denver BroncosAir-Sea Rescue helicopter pilotsRailway engineering workersOrangemenBuddhist monksGuantanamo Bay detainees

Anyway, we have new shirts now. We've kept the black and orange colours, of course, but now we have the team logo on the front and our personal nicknames and squad numbers on the back.

They arrived in time for a tournament yesterday, and we had a little presentation ceremony where they were handed out. Then we had our first match in the spiffing new shirts - which we won. We actually came ninth out of twelve in the end, which wasn't bad going against teams who were often two divisions higher than us.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Went to leaving do for Director of Information Services at City yesterday afternoon. Ended up staying till they chucked us out of the function room with Julian and Tigger (and Tamsin, who was an honorary Wolf for statistical purposes). Did think of yet another motto for us (not that we bneed another): "First in the field - last out the pub!". "Primus in campo, ultimus ex taverna"?

…we’d have no luck at all.Ball-game fans might remember that the Loan Wolves ended up being relegated to Division Six at the end of last season. We learned only a few days ago that two teams had dropped out of higher divisions, so there were two places in Div Five available. And three teams who were willing to play for them. We all had till Sunday to arrange to play each other for the two higher-division spots. As soon as Tigger sent a message out, all available Wolves volunteered unhesitatingly for play-off duty. Frantic organisation set up a mini-tournament yesterday at Regent’s Park.So, as the first London marathon runners were coming in to the finish, we were heading out to decide our softballing fate.We assembled and did some warming up and practice. Then on to our first game. Each team played each of the others, and we were drawn to play first and last of the three games. First against Comer’s Homers, then the Meteors 2. Not too bad a draw on paper.Day not helped to a good start by Duncan Devil Stray popping his head up (he was watching a higher-level play-off) to tell us we had no chance. Thanks, DDS.And then, as we set off for the pitch, the heavens opened with a torrential rain shower, with high winds thrown in. We’d been drawn to field first, and our poor pitchers had to contend with wind and rain and poor visibility, which let the other side take more walks than they might have been able to otherwise. And our fielders had the problem of trying to throw and catch muddy and soaking wet balls in a rainstorm, so we had a hard time of it. They made a lot of runs in that first inning.Then, as soon as their inning ended, the sun came out. The game ended 16-11 to them. Ten of the opposition’s runs had come in the rain-drenched inning from hell.The Mets then took the Homers apart while we watched, trying to work out what was the best result for us. We decided that things weren’t too bad – run difference would mean that a win against the Mets would get us through with the Homers dropping out.Sadly, it was not to be. It was a close game, and we managed to get two runs ahead by the bottom of the fourth inning. But it was late in a long, tiring, gruelling day, and they got ahead again. Ten minutes till “no new innings”, and we just couldn’t get the third out to finish their inning in time to bat again.So we came away from the day with nothing. Still, we did play well through both games, and the experience of playing for real stakes might help sharpen us up for the new season. When we’ll be looking for promotion. But we were all a bit gutted. As Kate put it, there being two places for three teams meant that instead of there being one winner, there was one loser. And that was us.A few beers helped cheer us up a little.